The Bible in Spain Volume II Part 47

{228b} "Good night to you!"

{234} Or _Nevski_ = of the Neva; as we have a Thames Street.

{236} Spanish, _duende_. See p. 238. Oddly enough in _Germania_, or thieves' slang, _duende_ = _ronda_, a night patrol.

{237} Madrid is not a city or _ciudad_, but only the chief of _villas_.

{240} In Romany, _Chuquel sos pirela cocal terela_.

{242a} _El Nuevo Testamento Traducido al Espanol de la Vulgata Latino por el Rmo. P. Phelipe Scio de S. Miguel de las Escuelas Pias Obispo Electo de Segovia_. _Madrid_. _Imprenta a cargo de D. Joaquin de la Barrera_. 1837.

{242b} The church of San Gines is in the Calle del Arenal; the chapel of Santa Cruz in the Concepcion Jeronima.

{246} This is a curious slip; the spelling is found in the first and all subsequent editions. The true name of the defile-it is between Velez el Rubio and Lorca-is, as might be supposed, _La Rambla_, but the narrowest part of the pa.s.s is known as the _Puerto de Lumbreras_ (the Pa.s.s of Illumination), and from _Rambla_ and _Lumbrera_ Borrow or the printer of 1843 evolved the strange compound _Rumblar_!

{248} This would naturally mean, "Most reverend sir, art thou still saying, or, dost thou still say Ma.s.s?" which seems somewhat irrelevant.

Possibly what "the prophetess" meant to ask was, "Most reverend sir, hast thou yet said Ma.s.s?"

{251a} "Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?" The song of Mignon in Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, introduced in the opera of _Faust_.

{251b} See note, vol. i. p. 216.

{256} Born at Amalfi, 1623, a simple fisherman. He headed the rebellion of the Neapolitans against the Spanish viceroy, in 1647. His success as a leader led to a revulsion of popular feeling, and he was executed or murdered within a few days of his greatest triumph.

{261} Chiefly in their p.r.o.nunciation of the characteristic G and Z of the Castilian as S instead of TH. The South-American Spaniards, so largely recruited from Andalusia, maintain the same sibilation, which is about as offensive to a true Castilian as the dropping of an H is to an educated Englishman.

{262} Safacoro is the Romany name for Seville; and Len Baro for the great river, _arabice_ Wady al Kebir, the Guadalquivir. See Glossary.

{263} For further information about Manuel and Luis Lobo, who compiled a ma.n.u.script collection of the pseudo-gypsy writings of _los del aficion_, or those addicted to the _Gitanos_ and their language, see _The Zincali_, part iii. chap. ii.

{264a} ????e, voc. of ??????, the usual mode of address, "sir."

{264b} The name of a famous family of Dutch printers (15941680).

{266} Priests. Greek, pap??; not Spanish, in which language _Papa_ means the Pope (of Rome).

{267} ??p?te = nothing at all.

{273} The secondary signification of "prosperity" or "good fortune" is more familiar to English ears; the word having come to us by way of the Spanish, American, and Californian mining camps.

{274} "The Ill.u.s.trious Scullion."

{282} Lit. a b.u.t.terfly.

{288} This was Mr. John Brackenbury.

{292a} The great Danish poet, born in 1779, died 1850; see _ante_, note, vol. i. p. 29.

{292b} October 21, 1805.

{293a} It is an American in our own day, Captain Mahan, U.S.N., who has called attention, in his masterly _influence of Sea Power upon History_, to the transcendent importance of the battle of Trafalgar, hardly realized by the most patriotic Englishman, who had well-nigh forgotten Trafalgar in celebrating the more attractive glories of Waterloo.

{293b} Storm of east wind; wind from the Levant.

{293c} I.e. _Kafirs_, the Arabic term of reproach, signifying an unbeliever; one who is _not a Moslem_!

{294} The t.i.tle formally granted to this Alonzo Perez de Guzman, under the sign-manual of King Sancho the Bravo, was that of "The Good." His son was not crucified, but stabbed to death by the Infante Don John, with the knife that had been flung over the battlements of the city by the poor lad's father, A.D. 1294 (see _Doc.u.mentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana_, tom. x.x.xix. pp. 1397).

{295} Rather of Muza, the commander-in-chief of the army that conquered Gothic Spain in 711. Tarifa similarly perpetuates the memory of one of his lieutenants, Tarif; and Gibraltar is Gibil Tarik, after Tarik, his second in command (see Burke's _History of Spain_, vol. i. pp. 110120).

{296a} The hill of the baboons.

{296b} Rather, "The Island;" _Al Jezirah_.

{298} According to Don Pascual de Gayangos, Thursday, April 30, 711.

{301} In more modern slang, "a rock scorpion."

{302} ??? ????? sa?, a polite locution in modern Greek, signifying "you," "your good self, _or_, selves."

{307} More correctly, the _Preobazhenski_, _Semeonovski_, and _Findlandski polks_. The first is a very crack regiment, and was formed by Peter the Great in 1682. In 1692 it took part in the capture of Azov (Toll, "Nastolny Slovar," _Encyclop._ tom. iii.).

{309} This would have been General Sir A. Woodford, K.C.B., G.C.M.G.

{310} "A holy man this, from the kingdoms of the East."

{311} A street in West Hamburg, near the port and the notorious _Heiligegeist_, frequented by a low cla.s.s of Jews and seafaring men.

{312a} The living waters.

{312b} Into the hands of some one else-_manu alicujus_. _Peluni_ is the Fulaneh of the Arabs, the Don Fulano of the Spaniards; Mr. So-and-So; Monsieur Chose.

{314} _I.e._ "The Hill of the English," near Vitoria. Here, in the year 1367, Don Tello, with a force of six thousand knights, cut to pieces a body of four hundred men-at-arms and archers, under the command of Sir Thomas Felton, Seneschal of Guienne, and his brother Sir William. See Froissart, i. chap. 239; Ayala, _Cronicas de los Reyes de Castilla_, i.

p. 446; Merimee, _Histoire de Don Pedre Ier_, p. 486.

{316} The popular name for _Etna_-an etymology most suggestive, _Mons_ (Latin) and _gibil_ (Arabic) each signifying "a mountain."

{318} The book Zohar (Hebrew, "Brilliancy") is, next to the canonical Scripture, one of the ablest books in Hebrew literature, having been written by the Rabbi Simeon bar Jocha, "The Great Light" and "Spark of Moses," early in the second century of our era. The mysteries contained in the Zohar are said to have been communicated to Jocha during his twelve years' seclusion in a cave; and they are specially revered by a sect of modern Jews known as Zoharites, or Sabbathians, from their founder Sabbata Zevi, who was born at Smyrna in 1625, and claimed to be the true Messiah, but who, to save himself from death as an impostor, embraced the faith of Islam at Adrianople, and died a Moslem in 1676.

Yet a hundred years later another Zoharite pretender, Jankiev Lejbovicz, who acquired the name of Jacob Frank, of Offenbach, near Frankfort, and died only in 1792, made himself famous in Germany. The Zoharites were Cabalistic, as opposed to Talmudic, in their theology or theosophy, and in later times have claimed to have much in common with Christianity.-See M. J. Mayers (of Yarmouth), _A Brief Account of the Zoharite Jews_ (Cambridge, 1826); and Graetz, _History of the Jews_, vol. v. pp. 125, 289.

{322} Rabat.

{330} 1 Kings xix. 1113.

{337} _On_ as a termination is usually indicative of size without admiration, bigness rather than greatness, as in the Italian _one_.

{343a} The tomato was hardly known in England in 1839, and was not common for forty years after, so Borrow may be excused for giving the word in its Spanish form. The plant was introduced into Spain from Peru in the sixteenth century.

{343b} "Lord of the World." _Adun_ or _Adon_ is the well-known Hebrew word for Lord, and is said to be the origin of the Spanish t.i.tle _Don_.